Showing All of April 2024

Closing Reception: April 26, 2024 / 5–7pm

Café Con Arté is a space like no other in the Tri-Cities, in my opinion. As the name alludes to, it’s the perfect blend of coffee, art, and culture. I’m very honored to have my first ‘solo’ art exhibition in my hometown, just a few blocks from where I grew up in East Pasco. Thank you to the owner, friend and fellow artist Saul Martinez, for believing in my art and my voice. Y’all should know — he peer pressured me into taking this show on. I really needed the push, and I’m glad this worked out the way it did. 

TRANSCENDENTAL DREAMS aims to open up your mind, body, and soul to the possibilities that exist around you (and more importantly, WITHIN you). Everyone has a story. Everyone has a dream. While this art exhibition will focus on my story through my lens, I hope that it allows people the space to look at their individual story, through no lens but their own.

While researching for this show, I stumbled across a ton of ideas. I’m the type of person who wants to learn everything I can (that’s a pro and a con.)

There were a couple of concepts that started to take shape while creating for this exhibition. The Japanese Three Face Theory was one. The theory states that everyone has three faces: the first face you show the world; the second face is the one you only show to family and friends and is an ever-changing face; the third face is the face you can only show yourself — because you can never betray yourself.

Another concept that helped shape this exhibition was given to me by my cousin, Stasik (who has an art piece in this exhibition). He called me one day like, “Yo. Check out the Japanese word, Ikigai.” Ikigai refers to defining your personal meaning of life in relation to your talents, passions, and profession, as well as what you can give to the wider world.

The last piece of the puzzle came while studying the prefix “meta-”. Meta- has many definitions, and they can vary from language to language. In English, it refers to something that is self-referential. In Latin, meta- refers to a point of transition or transformation. In Yoruba, it refers to the number three.

My aim was to take all of these concepts, make them meaningful in my personal life, and translate them through my art. It was a deeply personal process.

The majority of the art in the exhibition will be my own, but I also brought some friends along. The humans I asked to be a part of this show were chosen very intentionally. They are painters, photographers, poets, illustrators, tattoo artists, dope asf, etc. etc. I’m a fan of their creative expression. Huge thank you to y’all for joining me on this journey. 

TRANSCENDENTAL DREAMS Featured Artists: Nick Bunch, Ray Casteñeda, Daishaundra Loving-Hearne, Madison Rosenbaum, Desmond Samples, Cori Shelton, Stasik Vaughn Jr, and villiané. 

There will also be a limited run of T-shirts sold at the closing night reception that I worked on with Alfonso Herrera (owner of ON.SO Print Shop located in Pasco). Show up and buy us out.

My hope is that this exhibition helps to facilitate conversations centered around the individual human experience.